Monday, December 17, 2012

I have an essay in the soon-to-be-published issue 125 of The New Quarterly. TNQ's new editor, Pamela Mulloy--who was very patient and accommodating with me as I first failed to deliver the essay on time and then failed to deliver it on topic--previews the piece thoughtfully on the TNQ website:

An elegant, honest disquiet prevails in Zachariah Wells’ essay “A Walking Shadow.” The essay, part of our “Day Jobs” series, started out as a piece about his working on the Halifax to Montreal train as a service attendant while maintaining a career as a writer. However as things started to falter in his life, the essay took another shape. As I mentioned in an email exchange with Wells, the charm of working in the field of literary arts is the unexpected gem we receive when soliciting work. So while not the essay we originally conceived this one sears with humanity as he writes of his father, the rocky future in railroading, his own history, and the question of what lies ahead.